Thursday, August 18, 2011

Another Dose of Dangle

Death defying cliff jumpers at Indian Falls

I’ve missed a couple weeks of Doses, partly due to vacation, yes, more vacation for Dangle, and partly due to the way things go.

I’ve been writing like mad. I’m so over comics, but I’m more creative than ever. I had my own writing workshop up at Oakland Feather River Camp up in the mountains. I wrote all morning every day and broke some new ground on my book. Some really weird stuff bubbled up from my unconscious that was very vivid and powerful. Of course it puts more kinks in the plot and structure that I have no idea how to fix, but that’s another issue.

I wish I could write as effectively here at home but I’m constantly getting waylaid. I should probably turn off the computer and internet. I’ve been having to knock off work at 2:30 each day to pick up Oscar from science camp and take him swimming too. It’s the end of summer and finally hot so we’ve got to get our water play in.
More Troubletown HistoryThe other thing that’s been going on is that I’ve been sifting through twenty-two years of Troubletown cartoons to pick the ones for my show at the Cartoon Art Museum. There’s over a thousand cartoons on the floor of my studio. Andrew, the curator, offered to have some interns help me with the restoration of the cartoons that are falling apart but I just couldn’t hand them over. I did it all myself and it was sort of meditative but mostly a giant pain in the ass.
More Glue IssuesI asked my friend Karthik, a collage artist, what glue he uses because the UHU sticks were just so fat and clumsy. He said get the PH balanced special glue they sell at Blick’s that’s formulated to last centuries and brush it on very thinly. I started using it, but then my other friend, Lee, a big comics collector said, never use the PH balanced special glue because the paper’s porosity soaks it up and then the paper becomes wavy. Wavy cartoons are the worst, he said, he wouldn’t buy them. Well, it’s too late now, unless maybe I weigh them down with an anvil or something.

Show Details So FarHey, the show starts September 17th, goes straight through Alternative Press Expo (there’ll be a party that Saturday) and the reception will be on October 6. Mark your calendars! More info to come.

Next week I go in for surgery. As anybody who has ever drank beer with me in a bar knows, my prostate is the size of a Christmas ham, so I am going to have it fixed. One scene in my novel involves a surgery so this will be excellent research. If I go into cardiac arrest and die on the operating table, as happens to fifty year olds who have eaten pork ribs and ice cream all their lives, please buy my cartoon originals to support my poor little wife and child.